Mary's friends

[kerry]

Looked through the Turners' book. In January 1873, she wrote Arnold asking if he had received papers from Scotland from Mr. Reid and they've both written about them to him. It is possible she wanted to give Arnold information for his writings. She then drop off the map in Canada. In January 1874, she wrote John Todd Stuart several letters. One was a denial of the interview with Herndon, which she asked him to show around, which he did, provoking Herndon's broadside in response. She clipped the response and sent it to Stuart with a letter talking about how terrible Herndon was. The next day she wrote that after a night's reflection over what she had written the previous day, she thought it was best not to give him any attention. She then drops off the radar until October 1874, when she wrote up a short piece to be published in response to controversy over the Mather burial lot and sent it to Isaac Arnold. This time period (between Tad's death and her commitment) is when she seemed to be most willing to issue responses, probably because she had nothing left to lose. I wonder what she did in Canada - clearly she must have interacted with somebody over such a long time period.

Back in June 1870, there is a series of letters to James Smith. A bunch of the first letter is missing. The next one refers back to it, apologizing for "the fearful scrawl I sent you." She says after thinking it over "it is more advisable and prudent for the present to postpone publishing the article you propose on that renowned scamp....of course you can prepare your scoring." She says she'll watch the papers until Herndon comes into notice again and then tell him to go for it - she then asks to see the article to approve it, adding "please modify and improve my expressions which I used concerning the villain for instance when i referred to his falsehoods you can express it in a gentle yet sarcastic manner, also clothe the language more elegantly, only conveying the same strong meaning always, and especially as I am a woman...quote my letter as a very private one, written entirely for your own perusal, yet under the circumstances...the true statements i make you...you give my assertions as proof..." So she was always somewhat on top of replies and aware of what was going on, but she was generally reluctant to speak out. The instructions make me laugh - "a gentle yet sarcastic manner, only conveying the same strong meaning always."